Author's Note:

Welcome to the filler chapter that exists to cut out filler days! Ironic as it is, this is a good chance to correct Brandon's moveset and move on to story missions quickly. Besides, I can't bully Brandon two chapters in a row. That would be mean :)

As we made our way to Marowak's Dojo, I couldn't help but be impressed by how quickly my body recovered from injuries. The cut Skuntank gave me was little more than a scratch now, and the oran berries used to treat it also helped with my soreness from this morning. I felt completely revitalized despite the rough start to my day.

"So, what exactly are we going to do when we reach the dojo?" I asked Crest.

"I don't actually know," Crest answered, "but it will be some kind of training. Marowak will probably have an idea of what we should do."

"I hope it isn't too difficult, today's been enough of a mess already," I continued.

It didn't take long to reach the dojo. Upon entering, we were in a big, empty room. The center of the room was a battlefield, and there was some sort of cave in the back that led underground.

"Welcome to the dojo," Marowak called out from the center of the battlefield. "I take it you two are here for some training?"

"That was the plan," I said as Crest and I approached the dojo's master.

Marowak gave us a friendly smile, revealing he wasn't as tough as he first appeared. "In that case, I need to know how strong you are. Do either of you happen to know your levels?"

Crest checked his badge, but I already knew how strong I was; I spent most of Waterfall Cave watching my level increase. Sure, it was just a number, but I still found the measurements my badge could read fascinating. "I'm level nine," I answered.

Crest quickly followed, "And I'm level ten."

"Oh, good! I see you have team badges. If you don't mind, could I see those for a moment? I can use their readings to give you appropriate training," Marowak explained. We handed him the badges and he took a moment to examine them. "Levels nine and ten, yet you only know three moves each. I'm going to check something with Electivire, so you can wait here for a moment. Feel free to use the battlefield until I get back."

Marowak returned our badges and left the dojo, leaving me and Crest on our own. "I don't think he'll be gone long, so let's not start training until Marowak comes back," Crest suggested.

"No arguments here," I responded, returning my badge to its usual spot on the power band. "What should we do until then?"

Crest pinned his badge on his silver bow. "Just make sure you're ready for when the training does start. Eat some more oran or pecha berries if you need to."

"I'm fine, the berries from earlier already healed me," I said. "What about you? I was sore from yesterday's exploration, but oran berries Chimecho gave me helped."

"Sore?" Crest questioned before realizing, "Oh, from the water trap. That really isn't a problem for me. I used to swim all the time, so the only problem I had yesterday was Treasure Springs. Water should never be hot."

"I thought the hot spring was nice," I said, then thought for a second. "But you did say you're from Blizzard Island. I assume it's pretty cold there?"

Crest looked upset about something, but he tried to hide it. "Could you please not go around telling pokemon where I'm from? I… don't like to talk about home."

Seems I struck a nerve. Still, Crest made it pretty clear he wouldn't talk about Blizzard Island any more than he had to, so I dropped the subject. "Okay then, I won't say anything."

We were left in an awkward silence until Marowak returned, which thankfully didn't take too long. "Alright, sorry for making you wait," he said upon reentering the dojo. "Now then, there are a few ways you can train here. The first option is to enter one of my training dungeons in the back. Alternatively, you can use this battlefield to practice battling or learn new moves."

"You can teach us new moves?" Crest asked.

"Well, kind of," Marowak explained, "According to Electivire, Chikorita should be able to learn Poison Powder. As for you, Piplup, you already know all the moves you should be able to use at your level."

Poison Powder, huh? My earlier experience with poison was far from pleasant, so I knew how effective the move could be, but the battles against hostiles in mystery dungeons were usually too short for poisoning them to have much use. Still, it would be more useful than an empty move slot. "I think the best thing for me to do is learn Poison Powder, but what are you going to do?" I asked Crest.

"I'm not sure," Crest answered.

"In that case, why don't you train against him?" Marowak suggested. "You can practice dodging attacks while Chikorita tries the new move."

That sounded like a good plan to me. Although I didn't like the idea of attacking Crest, especially with poison, we had several pecha berries that could heal him. Besides, he needed to know how my attacks worked so we could battle as a team.

Crest agreed to Marowak's idea, so we moved onto the battlefield to begin the training. "Alright, so-" Marowak began before a realization stopped him. "Ah, please excuse me, but I don't believe I've gotten your names. I need to know how to address you if you're training here."

To be honest I hadn't thought much of it. Most of the pokemon in Treasure Town didn't seem to have a name, so I wasn't really expecting Marowak to ask for one in the first place. "My name is Brandon," I answered.

"I'm Crest," Crest added.

"Okay Brandon and Crest, with that out of the way, we can begin training. Crest, you just be ready to dodge Brandon's attack. Poison Powder can be a bit difficult to control, and the spores tend to scatter," Marowak instructed. "As for you, Brandon, try to focus your energy into the seeds around your neck. Think of it like using your vines, but instead of using just one or two seeds you need to use all of them."

That sounded simple enough. I tried to focus my energy without using vines, but it was difficult to tell if I was doing it right. Eventually I felt the attack form around my neck. The energy for it was weaker and less centralized than Tackle or Razor Leaf, which I guess was what distinguished Poison Powder as a status move.

Marowak continued to instruct me, "Once you think you've focused enough energy, try to release it."

I knew I had the energy for the move ready, but I wasn't sure how to control it. That became very evident when I unleashed my attack. Instead of firing toward my intended target, the purple spores I created just fell weakly around me.

"I guess that wasn't quite right," I said in an attempt to hide my embarrassment.

Crest got a quick laugh out of that. "At least it made my job easy!"

"Actually, it wasn't bad for a first attempt. Poison Powder isn't exactly an intuitive move," Marowak said. "Try again, but this time instead of relaxing to release the move, tense up. That should make the spores burst from the attack. You can practice aiming it afterwards."

I tried as Marowak suggested, and this time the Poison Powder exploded into a purple cloud around me. Still not a controlled attack, but it did get me thinking about alternative uses for the move. I could use this as a counterattack to physical hits, or maybe even a pseudo-smokescreen. A very dangerous and toxic smokescreen, anyway.

As my attack settled, I saw Crest and Marowak standing a short distance away. They must have stepped back to avoid the poison. "Hey, I actually had to dodge that one," Crest joked.

I spent the rest of the training session perfecting my new move. By the end, I could control where the attack went and how many spores there were, although larger attacks took more time to charge. We ended up using two of our pecha berries, the first because an early attack exploded uncontrollably and the second when I had mostly mastered it so Crest couldn't dodge. That was when we decided to stop for the day; I'd rather not poison my friend more than I had to.

"Well, it seems like you've got Poison Powder pretty much figured out," Marowak said as the training concluded. "Just remember that it will poison any pokemon that touches it, including teammates, and you can't use Poison Powder to poison Grass, Poison, or Steel type pokemon."

"I know, thanks for the help Marowak," I replied as Crest and I left the dojo.

Since we had no other jobs for today and it was getting late, we began to head back to the guild. "I hope you had more fun in there than I did," Crest began on our way to the guild.

"Should I remind you where we got those pecha berries in the first place?" I answered. "I just hope I don't have to poison enemies very often. Something about it just seems… cruel."

"Well, you better get used to it. After all that training, Poison Powder is your most versatile move," Crest reasoned. "As long as you aim it at hostiles we should be fine."

That was actually what was bothering me; I didn't think poison would be useful against hostiles. The only other pokemon I had any reason to fight were Team Skull, but all three of them were immune to poison. The only pokemon I could reasonably expect to use Poison Powder on were other explorers.

On the topic of Team Skull, they were on the guild's lower floor when we returned. Skuntank was talking with Chatot and Wigglytuff, and when the conversation ended the guild leaders left to Wigglytuff's room to discuss something. They didn't come out until it was time for dinner.

Crest and I did our best to avoid Team Skull, so you can imagine our frustration when we found the toxic trio sitting next to us at dinner. Sunflora and Chimecho were watching them just as closely as we were, and I could have sworn the Guildmaster appeared concerned for a brief moment. Regardless, we looked to him for an explanation.

With the entire guild waiting on him, Wigglytuff made his announcement. "Alright, friends! As you can see, we have three new friendly friends joining us for dinner. That is Exploration Team Skull, and they will be joining us on the upcoming expedition!"

"As many of you know, Team Skull is a skilled exploration team experienced with high-difficulty missions," Chatot continued, "and while they will undoubtably be a great help to us all, it would be difficult to work together without getting to know each other first. As such, Skuntank, Koffing, and Zubat will be living with us at the guild leading up to the expedition."

Half the guild pretended to be excited over what Chatot had said. Those of us who knew what happened this morning merely contained our disgust. The pokemon who attacked and poisoned me was supposed to be a new ally? I was suddenly grateful that new recruits rarely went on expeditions.

Despite everything, dinner was mostly uneventful. I was pretty tense sitting next to Skuntank, and his poisons were starting to make my leaf hurt by the time dinner finished, but he left me alone, at least for now. As everyone left the dining hall, Chimecho slipped me a pecha berry, and I saw Sunflora get one too.

Back in our room, Crest jumped on the opportunity to complain about Team Skull. "I can't believe Chatot trusts those guys. They're not explorers, they're thieves! No one even likes them, they even attacked us this morning."

"It's not like we can do anything about it," I replied, taking a bite out of the pecha berry. "Chatot doesn't know any of that, and Chimecho said he wouldn't believe us if we told him. Let's just keep our distance from them until the expedition is over and try not to cause any trouble."

"How can you be okay with this? Just being near them is painful for you and Sunflora. You both needed pecha berries after dinner because of them," Crest argued.

I finished the berry and tried to calm Crest down. "I'm just saying we need to make the best of it. The last thing we need is to get Chatot angry at us. Knowing those three, they will mess up sooner or later and Chatot will kick them out himself. Until then, we should just focus on our guild work."

"Fine," Crest conceded, "We should get some sleep. With Team Skull around, we'll need to stay alert."

"Yeah, good night Crest," I agreed.

There actually was one thing we could do about Team Skull. If I could have a vision about them, we could use it to reveal them as criminals. The problem was that I couldn't control when I had visions. Even if I could, I can't always act on what I see anyway. There's also the matter of convincing Chatot to believe me. My only option was to talk directly to Wigglytuff. I just hoped I was right about him…